Fordham Doctoral Student Studies Bees

Wedged between two apartment complexes in Harlem lies the Electric Ladybug Garden. A painted “Welcome, Garden for All!” sign hangs outside the entrance. Trees and colorful Adirondack chairs line the perimeter. A small grey cat wanders around the garden jumping through flower boxes overflowing with tens of different types of plants, wild strawberries, lettuce, and tomatoes. 

Toward the back of the garden is a man holding a grey industrial net. He is Brian Saville, a Fordham University Ph.D. student, doing his routine netting field collection. Saville is studying how bees move across urban landscapes and gardens for his dissertation. 

“ I am not a bee guy by trade,’” Saville said."This is sort of something I've just picked up in the past year or so. I've always been a nature guy and an animal guy. I was always interested in biology and knew I wanted to do something related to that, and bees came about just by falling into it.”

Saville came up with the idea after speaking with Fordham professor of  entomology, Dr. Katie Turo. She inspired him to dig into the dissertations from alumni, and he came across the work of Dr. Kevin Madison, a Ph.D. graduate from 20 years ago, who also surveyed the bees in community gardens. Saville decided to follow up on Madison’s work.

He explained his approach. “ I'm hoping by learning more about what species are in these gardens and how that population is affected by the floral diversity, the size, and the different factors of the different gardens, we can learn information that can inform management practices or policies that can help us better protect our imperiled pollinator communities.” 

Saville is collecting bees at 16 different gardens throughout Manhattan and the Bronx every month. He is able to catch and study the bees through two practices called netting and bowling. 

Netting involves Saville catching bees and placing them into small plastic containers. Afterwards he jots down the plant it was captured from, the time of day, and the garden. Saville cycles through three gardens at a time, visiting once during the morning and again in the afternoon to account for species active at different times. 

For the bowling process, Saville velcroes three small bowls onto a wooden plate. He then fills each bowl with water and a small amount of dish soap to attract bees. The next day, Saville comes back to the garden to collect the captured insects. 

Saville mentioned Madison's words that have stuck with him throughout his studies. Madison told him that people often admire the heroes of science, like Charles Darwin and other figureheads, but fail to recognize the unsung heroes: the people maintaining and managing community gardens. Madison said the work they do to help maintain and manage biodiversity is extremely valuable to science. 

Saville also talked about how this process has surprised him in many ways. 

“There's such a wealth of life even in the corners of the city where you really would not expect,” Saville said. “It really is a hidden gem and really impressive and stunning what can thrive here.”

While the process of field collection is currently underway, he still has more work to do with identification of the bees, analysis, and finding patterns and statistics. 

The hum of bees buzzing echoes throughout the garden as Saville closes up for the day. He will be back soon again to continue his studies.